We synced up on IRC and went through the same stages:
overall we did:
1. cleaning all samba bits via apt purge (and rm if stale files were around)
after that my test container as well as his system were in this state:
Since on the Desktop there is a dependency chain mplayer -> libsmbclient ->
samba-libs I was
adapting my container to the reported case. The new overview is:
http://paste.ubuntu.com/23343815/
2. clean out files of samba-libs:i386 as defined by
http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/i386/samba-libs/filelist
While we haven't found a reason it should be on the system, it is - so
removing those makes apt&reality match again.
3. installing samba via "apt install samba"
On the apt report before Y/N watch the "The following additional packages
will be installed:"
That should have no i386 packages listed - please report if it does.
That hopefully gives a clean and working system again like:
http://paste.ubuntu.com/23343842/